Next stop - Jiufen 九份

When we were in the cab heading to Jiufen, the cab driver told us a little background for Jiufen. It was initially nine families staying in this relatively isolated village on the mountain. Whenever these village people went to the town for grocery shopping or anything, they would always buy in portion for nine families. Slowly, this has earned the name for this village until today.

Narrow Jiufen Street

Our cab driver recommended two must-try-foods in Jiufen that we must not missed.

1) 賴阿婆芋圓 + 草仔粿 (Lai ah po taroballs + taro glutinous ricecake)

2) 九份張記傳統魚丸 (fishballs)

Authetic Lai Ah Po taro balls

Taro glutinous ricecake 草仔粿 (left), fishballs 魚丸 (right)

Local snack

Traditional Teahouses along Shuqi Street (豎崎路) - towards the end of Jiufen and is perpendicular to Jiufen

Lavender Shop

Customized made / Recycle denims clothes and bags

Roads up to Jiufen

Breathtaking scenary from Jiufen

Several movies chose to shoot here and the movies won international acknowledgement. A film "A City of Sadness" has won first prize in Venice Film Festival and awakened people's memory of Jiufen.

Jiufen 九份

Address: Ruijin Hwy, Ruifang District, New Taipei City

Last stop - Shifen 十分 (Sky lantern)

Took the rail train from Houtong station to Shifen train station. Around 20 minutes ride for NT$15.

The main tourist attraction here is to put sky lantern 放天灯 ! Both stretch of shop houses mainly sell sky lanterns with railway in the middle where train will be passing by anytime.

Train railway in the middle

Whole street of sky lanterns

Up up in the sky

mini light lantern souvenir to bring back homeland

My cab driver bought fire crackers and put for us to see. Never knew they can have fireworks whenever they want. Too bad, we were busy admiring the fireworks till we forgot to take any pictures.

3 comments:

Hi! love your blog :) I have some questions though, we would love to go there next month.How much time you spent in each places in Day 4? Can we cover all these places in just one day? What time did you end the tour and did you went back to Taipei City after Shifen? Are these places far from each other? Sorry for my impulsive questions :) I hope you'll find time to answer to enlightened my mind. hahaha. Thanks!

HI~ We set off around 8.30am and back to our hotel around 8pm just in time for dinner in Taipei. How much time spent on each places really depend on yourself. I spent around 1 hour each at jiu fen, shi fen and yehliu. The rest around half hour. you can refer to my google map to see the estimated distance among one another. I would suggest to engage a driver for day trip. hope this helps =)

May I ask for the contact and price of one day for your driver? Also did the driver speak English. I can speak a bit of Chinese, but if the driver has some English ability too that would make everything smoother :)